GM accelerates electric car investments, announces 2 new battery cell factories in the US

GM announced today an acceleration of its planned investments in electric vehicles, which is going to include two new battery cell factories in the US.

Combining investments in autonomous and electric vehicles, GM is announcing a 75% increase in investments over the current five-year period:

General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) announced today it will increase its EV and AV investments from 2020 through 2025 to $35 billion, representing a 75 percent increase from its initial commitment announced prior to the pandemic.

GM chair and CEO Mary Barra says that the automaker is now targeting 1 million annual global electric vehicle sales by 2025:

We are investing aggressively in a comprehensive and highly-integrated plan to make sure that GM leads in all aspects of the transformation to a more sustainable future. GM is targeting annual global EV sales of more than 1 million by 2025, and we are increasing our investment to scale faster because we see momentum building in the United States for electrification, along with customer demand for our product portfolio.

The automaker released a few details about what they plan to do with the new investments:

Expanding and accelerating the rollout of EVs for retail and fleet customers: In November 2020, GM announced it would deliver 30 new EVs by 2025 globally, with two-thirds available in North America. Through the additional investments announced today, GM will add to its North America plan new electric commercial trucks and other products that will take advantage of the creative design opportunities and flexibility enabled by the Ultium Platform. In addition, GM will add additional U.S. assembly capacity for EV SUVs. Details will be announced at a later date.

One of the bigger uses of the new money coming in for electric vehicles at GM is going to be two new battery cell factories in the US.

Accelerating Ultium battery cell production in the United States: GM is accelerating plans to build two new battery cell manufacturing plants in the United States by mid-decade to complement the Ultium Cells LLC plants under construction in Tennessee and Ohio. Further details about these new U.S. plants, including the locations, will be announced at a later date.

Ultium Cells is a joint venture with LG Energy Solutions with already two factories in the works in Tennessee and Ohio.

The automaker didn’t elaborate on the planned production capacity at these two new factories that don’t have a location yet, but it should put GM among the top legacy automakers for in-house battery cell production capacity once the factories come online.